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theistic argumentation either collapses or results merely in the
establishment of an architect of the world's form. Thus the argument
involves a double reduction: from the teleological to the
cosmological, and from the cosmological to the ontological.
Our answer will attempt to show: first, that the former of these
reductions, while possibly valid, does not vitally affect the
structure of argumentative theism; and second, that the latter
reduction is totally invalid.
Reduction of the Teleological argument to the Cosmological
Statement of the reduction.---Kant thinks very highly of the
teleological argument, as the following passage abundantly indicates:
[indent] The world around us opens before our view so
magnificent a spectacle of order, variety, beauty, and conformity
to ends, that whether we pursue our observations into the
infinity of space in the one direction, or into its illimitable divisions
on the other, whether we regard the world in its greatest
or its least manifestations---even after we have attained to the
highest summit of knowledge which our weak minds can reach,
we find that language in the presence of wonders so inconceivable
has lost its force, and number its power to reckon, nay,
even thought fails to conceive adequately, and our conception
of the whole [[270]] dissolves into an astonishment without the
power of expression---all the more eloquent that it is dumb. . . .
And thus the universe must sink into the abyss of nothingness,
unless we admit, that besides this infinite [?] chain of contingencies,
there exists something that is primal and selfsubsistent---something
which, as the cause of this phenomenal
world, secures its continuance and preservation. (Footnote 17:
Critique of Pure Reason, p. 348.)